22 Reader Responses

1. Ktulu Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 3:02 am

   I will add that in those diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (not to be confused with OCPD, Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder), what generally occurs in the brain is a failure to process. By this, I mean that a task is done, but is not processed as being completed (due to things happening in the synaptic gaps), and thus the person repeats the task indefinitely until enough neurotransmitters cross the gap to register a completed act.

   Part of what’s so interesting to me about it is that it diminishes the chemical/biological causes of mental illness and seeks to uncover patterns of logic, traps of thinking which have caused these illnesses, and how to unravel them.

   In my personal opinion, there is no fundamental difference between cognitive (”logic”) issues and chemical/biological causes. They are one in the same. One produces the other, and vice-versa. Fixing one can also fix the other, and vice-versa. The only true difference between them is what the treatments *can* do to a person. If you teach someone to breakdown these loops via their own cognitive powers, you essentially empower them. If you give someone a drug, you place them under the control of it, thus reducing the control they have over their own lives. The only gray-area is electro-shock therapy which may permanently cure the problem, but, though it has become much more humane, it can still have irreversible side-effects.

   That being said, it is much harder to teach someone to take control over their own neurosis. It’s on par with teaching a computer to fix its software problems. You would essentially need to give the computer a program that analyzes code, and knows how to fix other programs. Imagine doing that with something as complicated as computer software, and multiple it on a massive scale. That’s how difficult it is to teach people to be aware of their own thinking.

   I hope that helps some.

2. fuj Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 9:12 am

   The placebo effect supports the mystical notion that consciousness ‘designs’ reality in the mind, and manifests it through the body and world. So I agree that giving someone a drug places them under its control; the effects (mind) are temporarily altered, but that which directs the mind (consciousness) is unchanged.

3. Ant Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 9:51 am

   I just wanted to make the comment that I really liked that Zen reference. I wish I could use that principle in regards to taxes.

4. Kylark Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 11:11 am

   I wonder why the concept of double binds fell out of favor with psychology?

   My gut response to this is that our culture places us in many double-binds. The “healthy” person has the mental resources to carry on notwithstanding, while a more sensitive person or somebody with fewer mental resources just gets trapped or paralyzed, or tries the equivalent of “taking the stick away” with very counterproductive results.

   Since psychotherapy and psychiatry are not able to address the environment or the larger culture, and since doing so is not even within the scope of their practices, they treat the individual instead with drugs and therapy, leaving all but the most immediate double binds unresolved.

5. Tim Boucher Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 12:12 pm

   Holy shit, this direction of conversation has turned very productive for me personally.

   Since psychotherapy and psychiatry are not able to address the environment or the larger culture, and since doing so is not even within the scope of their practices, they treat the individual instead with drugs and therapy, leaving all but the most immediate double binds unresolved.

   I can’t believe I never thought of it like that before. It seems so simple when you lay it out like that - that psychologists make sane people to exist in an insane culture. But I think at the same time, that all cultures consist of double-binds. That may be, in essence, what culture really is. I have more thoughts on that which I’ll post separately.

6. jp Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 12:17 pm

   The Zen pupil may achieve enlightenment by taking the stick from his master’s hands.

   no s/he won’t! the whole point is that this is a paradox which cannot be solved using normal logic. claiming that the student may become enlightened by taking the stick while the schizophrenic stays confused is really messing with the issue. the student might also achieve enlightenment by getting smacked with the stick; the schizophrenic may take the stick but remain “blocked” because of a lack of context.

   this may be our problem, as well– we’re trying to solve the rhetorical loop using normal aristotelian logic.

7. Tim Boucher Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 12:32 pm

   Well I think it was meant as just an analogy but I agree that the problem stems from using regular logic to solve the loop.

8. Tim Boucher Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 12:54 pm

   You know, I was just thinking about how the idea of the double bind was so popular in the 70’s. I’d say Philip K. Dick was pretty much obsessed with it in his work, with using incredible leaps of logic to chart an escape course from it. A Scanner Darkly is probably the most obvious example of how he treats the double bind and what it does to a person.

9. Donna Lee Says:
   March 21st, 2006 at 1:56 pm

   The double bind fell out of favor with psychology because it placed all of the blame on the mother. The term used was “schizophrenogenic mother” — that is the mother who creates a schizophrenic. This went on for some time until researchers discovered that fathers also had an effect on their children. Then they further discovered that the relationship between the parents had an effect, and the family system approach became more popular. Now, however, current research with twins shows that it may be at least partly genetic. No one really knows

   It must have been incredibly painful for a mother to watch her child slide into this condition, and then be held responsible for causing it. I think that the double bind exists in all disfunctional families- which is most of them. It is the degree of the situation and the child’s natural ability to cope which determines whether he or she grows up with a neurosis or full blown mental illness.

   Some good websites:
   http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/rgosden/phd.html
   http://www.23people.com/double_bind.html
   http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/1997/Koopmans.html

10. Tim Boucher Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 2:08 pm

    Thanks! Yeah, I’ve started to see references to this idea that the double bind fell out of favor because it “blamed the parents” so to speak. I can definitely imagine parents bringing in their child for therapy and then finding out that maybe its all of them that need therapy and then being resistant to that, and thus these therapists losing business and stopping the use of this technique. Actually, that situation itself is sort of a double-bind, isn’t it? A way out of it could be to realize that it’s simply a matter of communication between all people and amongst culture at large consists of endless double-binds, most so deeply ingrained that we don’t realize them anymore.

11. fisher king Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 4:05 pm

    I liked it better when the word schizophrenia didnt exist like it still doesnt in 1/3 of the world today so does it really exist if it once never was.
    

    The term used was “schizophrenogenic mother” — that is the mother who creates a schizophrenic.

    I would say that the mother nurses the schizophrenic back to health and that its the father figures iron hand that shows a lack of understanding that only a mothers love can soothe.

    Through repeated experience with the double bind the schizophrenic finds himself limited in the options he has available to him.

    I should imagine this is like gaining the knowledge that life is as you say all “double binds” leaving the logical rational mind at a loss and when faced with a problem to which they cant give a definative answer, by posing the double bind you ask them to deny everything that there perception of reality is based on, the knowledge that there could be many options and not just the singular could create a lack of options in way of understanding this.

12. alistair Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 6:10 pm

    the logical and reasonable mind is equipped to relate to math, law, science, etc. but when shown conclusively that things are happening that defy reason then schizophrenia occurs. we are all taught to be reasonable, but any display of schizophrenia is intolerable. witnessing the glitch in the matrix is verboten. teaching enlightenment with a stick is bullying. no student who is abused in this manner has any recourse but to leave or become the bully themselves when they become “enlightened”.
    we have all been bullied and we`ve all seen glitches in the matrix. who is brave enough to admit it?

13. fantastic planet » The Premiseless Imperative VI: Scattered Brains are Better Brains Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 6:16 pm

    […] t way to achieve enlightenment is to detach one’s self from it. Now there’s a double-bind for you! So what to do? How to begin this process? Lik […]

14. poo bear Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 6:36 pm

    schizophrenia can worsen from stress. That is the only correlation between “double binds” and this illness. It is not caused by confusing situations. We can easily look at people who were in such situations, such as prisoners of war, and note that they did not contract schizophrenia from their experience. Some may have had psychotic breaks from the stress, but this is not schizophrenia. and abusive childhoods do not breed schizophrenics, although they may lead to other emotional problems.

15. james Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 6:48 pm

    What about those who recognize the double bind and obliterate it? I’m talking about the criminal class.

    Used to be that bullies and certain kinds of convicts had “low self-esteem” but now research indicates that it’s the opposite: an inflated sense of ego– Narcissism.

    Rather than sit back and get beaten by a stick, they take the stick and beat the master with it. Then, they go around beating others with the same stick.

16. Sonny Moonie Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 7:43 pm

    My answer to the harsh Zen master riddle was the pupil should say something else, not about whether the stick is real, maybe ask the master what he had for breakfast.

    I thought, maybe that answer is so obvious that everyone sees that it’s a possibility while reading the story, then discounts it as not intended to be one of the possible answers because it’s too simple and everyone knows that story problems are supposed to be read as if they present real problems (and most people know if it’s Zen, the problem is supposed to be insoluble.) So I read my girlfriend the problem, to test whether it’s obvious to everyone.

    me: What should the pupil do?

    girlfriend: Say that the stick is not real.

    me: But the master will hit the pupil with the stick.

    girlfriend: If it’s not real, it won’t hurt him.

    So I thought again and got a third “obvious” answer: Run away. It’s likely the correct answer if the pupil hasn’t decided to be struck with a stick by a Zen master.

    “Schizophrenia” has meant a lot of different problems in the history of psychiatry, but now it mostly means: having waking hallucinations (visual or auditory) that are not under one’s control. Drugs to treat it may sedate a person so hallucinations don’t occur as often or aren’t as agitating, but they may also cause more hallucinations. I think the cause of schizophrenia is usually some kind of poisoning, just like with lsd.

    poo bear, I agree with the idea that stress can lead to worsening of schizophrenia, and that’s the only connection between the double-bind interactions discussed in the article and the current definition of schizophrenia. Also the “complaint” of any mental illness usually worsens under stress, which is not the same as the illness itself, but it’s what doctors are concerned about, because they have to listen to it.

    alistair, the transition between layers in the disc causes most dvd players to skip or pause a second or two in the middle of the movie. That explains the glitch in the Matrix, right around the line “We’re in.”

17. Ktulu Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 3:01 am

    I think the cause of schizophrenia is usually some kind of poisoning, just like with lsd.

    Ironically, LSD was once used as an experimental treatment for schizophrenia. As for what it is, I believe schizophrenia is comparable to “electronic bleed-over”. Take for instance old cable/antenna TV. If the unit is not correctly tuned to a specific channel, there will be a bleed over between two adjacent signals. Likewise with radio, if the tuner is off, or the signal weak, especially on AM transmissions, you can pick up parts of two signals at once.

    Now, imagine that most of society is tuned into one station/channel. If someone reports to see/hear something different, we suppose they’re crazy, that they’re hallucinating. Others may suggest the opposite, that society is blind, and the schizophrenic see the true nature of reality (similar to the protangonist in John Carpernter’s “They Live”).

    I think they’re both right and wrong. I believe that they are just tuned into a different perspective of the world, like the viewpoints of the enslaved vs. the viewpoints of the free in Plato’s Cave. Neither truly understand what they behold, but that doesn’t make it less real. The free person may notice the shadows for what they are, but that doesn’t negate the objective properties of the shadows that the enslaved are viewing. Likewise, the philosopher may come with knowledge of the outside world and how it relates to the cave world, but it does not make the cave world less real, only the perceptions and subjectivity are at fault.

    Is schizophrenia a poison? I highly doubt it. I think it’s more of a “tuning” problem. It’s a good problem, though, because it gives us the opportunity to view life in different perspectives. The key is not forcing the schizophrenic to see the TV channel we see or hear the radio station we hear, but instead, to help them cope with what they see/hear, and help them to usefully adapt to both stations/channels. To put into other terms, if someone is stuck between REM sleep and wakefulness, in a constant state of overlapping subjectivities, the key is not to force them to stay awake, but to help them adapt to both wakefulness and sleep.

18. alistair Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 10:54 am

    my personal experience with schizophrenia is that the child who developed the symptoms learned them from her mother. in this single case it`s difficult to seprate out the nature/nurture duality. the young girl did improve significantly when removed from the mother for a short period and the schizophrenia returned when they began living together again. far from conclusive but it has ben stated elsewhere in the the work of bandler and erickson that the hallucination aspect is learned, specifically as an avoidance strategy.

19. alistair Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 10:56 am

    it has been shown also that muliple personality disorder is a product of psychiatry at it`s most heavy handed. again, a learned behaviour.

20. Sonny Moonie Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 5:53 pm

    That’s a very good point, alistair. I was oversimplifying when I wrote that stress was the only connection between social interaction and hallucinations, trying to emphasize the idea that that’s possible in some cases, and making myself wrong in the process.

    My joke about “The Matrix” was meant to be funny at first, but then I left it in my post to show I usually have so little supernatural seeming experience that the “glitch” that stands out and annoys me is just a flaw in the continuity of an entertainment device. Then I saw it’s also like the borderline personality described in the article that changes the literal level during conversations to avoid emotional issues. But I left it in anyway after seeing that because I wanted it to be something about the double-bind of making myself look like I’m doing what causes other people to be schizophrenic, just by describing my own experience with humor.

    Since schizophrenia often runs in families, the line of reasoning of blaming some family members for poor communication or systematic denial of some part of reality or emotional mixed messages, as the cause of schizophrenia in other family members, runs into the problem that such poor communication is just a less intense version of the same kind of schizophrenia, confused-communication schizophrenia I’ll call it, so it may have the same root causes that aren’t just the observed verbal interaction.

    One of my brothers has had confused-communication schizophrenic episodes every year or two when he loses weight and starts making less and less sense in anything he says or does. One mental health professional was very insistent we accept that he was schizophrenic and learn about it as if we’d never heard of it before. But the episodes might be a manic phase of manic depression. Usually it’s treated only that way, with lithium.

    When he was at his worst once, I thought it could be something to do with malnutrition or the toxicity of losing weight (having the toxins of a modern diet released into his bloodstream from storage in fat.) He stopped being able to answer the simplest questions with anything but nonsense. He was wandering around the house, stuffing paper in drains and taking the fireplace apart brick by brick. When I was the only one watching him, I tried to tell him to stop, because I didn’t want my mother to come home and find her house wrecked of course, but he didn’t seem to be able to respond in any way, except sometimes to say some nonsense in response, by which I could tell he hadn’t just gone deaf. After a couple of hours of this, when it came to the point where I was afraid he was going to get hurt by a brick falling on him as he went back to taking apart the fireplace, my only recourse was to yell at him to stop, just sit down and stop. Finally he sat down and cried, and I felt that it was all my fault for bothering him. He continued being out of touch like that, and I described his state to my mother as “delirious” like when someone is sick in bed with a fever.

    He got treatment just like all the other times. The odd thing with the idea that it’s all because of family interaction is: He gets like that and gets hospitalized even when he’s living on his own or in a group home. My mother had an episode like that once, when she was a teenager, and the social situation and interaction in her home then wasn’t anything like in my brother’s case. My grandmother on my mother’s side had something probably similar, back when mental illness was treated the worst, so she was hospitalized the rest of her life since my mother was little. Again, that family situation two generations ago was a completely different situation.

    Ktulu, relating to what you wrote here: If there’s anything benign about it, like tuning in a version of reality that’s just different and not worse, that a person might be able to learn to deal with, the problem with having this sensitivity running in a family in modern life is: The modern world isn’t “child safe.” There’s too much glass, electricity, things to keep clean, plumbing and other “necessary” or “valuable” things to break if a person is just going to go off into an alternate reality and act like an overgrown child. (Learning everything from scratch?) When my grandmother put her hand through a window, that was when my grandfather thought she had gone far enough to need to be hospitalized. Maybe in more primitive conditions, people could go through episodes like that more easily, and that’s why this sensitivity hasn’t been selected out by evolution. Or maybe there’s something about the culture of civilization in general that causes this sensitivity to go wrong.

21. alistair Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 9:00 pm

    a society that ostricizes those who aren`t “normal” is eventually going to have a name for any behaviour that isn`t directly involved in work. further to this process of naming and blaming is the new drugs that are coming out daily, promising to “cure” these new named problems that we are suddenly getting.
    we all suffer a syndrome or two merely by being alive. it is challenge enough living with any sort of different attitude in a society that demands conformity. i, for instance, can`t sit in a cubicle for several hours at a time……i also couldn`t call people asking them if they want to buy new windows for thier house. i need constant stimulation from a variety of different sources in a day and probably would be a candidate for add if i was school age today. thankfully i`m 45 years old and do behavioural councelling for a living. this allows me an hour or so intense work and then a break before the next session. a re-boot. i think myself lucky to have found a vocation that allows me my “problem” without medication or ongiong therapy…………
    the matrix, in my view, is the status quo. the edge of the matrix is where all the “problems” exist that bureaucrats have with pesky humans who insist on processing reality in ways that don`t allow them to be easily manipulated or “robotised”. this matrix isn`t interested in quality of life so much as productivity. if you aren`t working you are a useless eater. google “useless eater”. you will see what i mean.

22. Summer Harvest » The Premiseless Imperative: Scattered Brains Are Better Brains Says:
    June 19th, 2007 at 11:24 am

    […] This is especially important for those seeking enlightenment, because we’ve got to cut the string that attaches us to gnosis before we can achieve it. The best way to achieve enlightenment is to detach one’s self from it. Now there’s a double-bind for you! […]